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Month: June 2018

You can determine how good a sushi restaurant is just by glancing at the topping box (neta-bako). The toppings should all be bright and shiny. This seafood was selected that very morning throughout Tsukiji Fish Market. Even when marinating in vinegar, it’s clear how lively and fresh the fish is.

Every single good sushi restaurant is small. The maximum counter space for a single sushi master to keep up with each customer is 10 seats. These excellent restaurants also have a number of regular customers and almost seem like an exclusive club.

The master conditions his customers to enjoy the toppings that he believes to be the best and the customers train the master into making the dishes they like. After all, making sushi may be a single profession, but it is a relative business and it takes time to build this deep understanding between the chef and customers.

Good sushi chefs do not play favorites to their regular customers. Good regular sushi customers are well-mannered and don’t make an unpleasant atmosphere for first-time customers. Both the chefs and customers are educated in this way. There is this sense of pure pressure in the restaurant.

Good sushi restaurants close their doors early. They need to get to Tsukiji Fish market first think in the morning. This means they need to get to bed by midnight. So the regular customers at these restaurants get up to leave when closing time rolls around. Somewhere along the way they’ve been trained to do this.

The bluefin tuna goes by different names in Japanese depending on its age. It starts out as “Meji,” grows into “Chubou” and finally is called Tuna (once it’s 50 kg or more).

Meji are less than 1 year old and weigh around 10 kg.

Chubou is an old word for relatively low-class Buddhist priests who were treated as errand boys. I guess it was meant to imply that these boys were even weaker than tuna. At this stage the fish are between 2-5 years old and weigh about 40kg.

Anything larger than that are called Maguro. The biggest is 3m long and 600kg or more. Especially large tuna are called Shibi. “Shibi” comes from the Japanese characters for “4-days”, which is how long the fish takes to mature.

Most meji and chubou are caught from May until the beginning of autumn when the tuna are thin and tasty.

Meji has its own unique scent and taste that sets it apart from full-grown tuna. The color is similar to the skipjack rather than bluefin. On the other hand, chubou has a lighter color and it isn’t as rich, but the flavor is young, refreshing tuna. That is why meji is considered to be a completely separate sushi topping and chubou is presented to be a type of tuna.

It is called Edo-style sushi, so the most appropriate place to eat it is Tokyo, formerly known as Edo. The skills of chefs raised in this long history of sushi. The best fishery products in Japan — no, in the world, are all found at Tsukiji Market. There is no question that combined with the veteran sushi experts, Tokyo is the battleground for sushi restaurants and where you’ll find the most prestigious locations.

Seafood product buyers tend to believe that the products they are purchasing are as described by the sellers. But, that isn’t always the case. Seafood products are sometimes intentionally labeled incorrectly for profit.

This is seafood fraud. Fraudulent actions like this threaten the safety of the food. From the FDA’s “Report on Seafood Fraud”

70% of seafood consumed in the US is eaten at restaurants. The products served at restaurants are generally lower quality than those sold in retail outlets and the sushi is especially appalling. Unless visiting a top-class sushi restaurant (where the prices are, of course, high), you can usually expect to be served the worst of the worst.

There isn’t much a consumer can do about this, but at the very least you can educate yourself on types of fish that are often substituted. If you were to order White Tuna or Red Snapper, you would very likely be served something else. Any shrimp ordered was probably farmed.

There are no laws regulating “Fresh” or “Organic” labels so don’t be fooled by these. In the same way, be suspicious when you see word combinations like “Great Sushi” or “Great Sashimi.” There is no such thing as “Great” in this sense.By Larry Olmsted, a print columnist for two of America’s three national newspapers, Investor’s Business Daily and USAToday